Summary: For BlackRose. Obi-Wan's 19th birthday, and Qui-Gon
arranges a get-away. As usual, Qui-Gon waxes poetic.
Feedback: Is greatly appreciated, avidly consumed, and saved
for later gloating.
Disclaimer: Playing in the House that George built. His toys,
his house, his game, his money, his lawyers. In short, George
Rules. In shorter short, I ain't touching his racket with a ten
foot pole.
References: Qui-Gon's poem this time is by Henry Vaughan.
"Well, Padawan?"
Obi-Wan Kenobi shifted a little with a grin up at his bondmate
and tried to snuggle just a little bit closer to the big rangy
body that held him close in the circle of one long arm.
Qui-Gon's glowing blue-violet eyes smiled down at him, yellow
firelight dancing across the regal face, picking out the silver
in his beard. "I hope you have a good story planned to tell
Master Yoda and the Council."
"Engine trouble," Qui-Gon said with a quirk of one eyebrow at
his apprentice. "Something we could not fix. We're not
engineers, we're Jedi."
"Then how did we return will be their next question." Obi-Wan
didn't really feel like arguing but he wanted to make sure
Qui-Gon wouldn't get in trouble for this and only a
well-thought-out story might prevent that.
"It was a computer glitch. A problem with dates or times or
something-er-other," Qui-Gon dismissed with a wave of his hand
any further such considerations.
"Mmm," Obi-Wan replied and allowed the topic to be dismissed.
"I don't suppose it had anything to do with my birthday did it?
Or the fact that there just happened to be camping gear, a
week's worth of food, and a navcomputer disk with a course
plotted out for--" He stopped abruptly and looked up at his
Master wonderingly. "Where are we, anyway?"
"Does it matter?" Qui-Gon asked, leaning down to kiss him.
"Not in the slightest," Obi-Wan whispered and leaned up to meet
him.
Wind whispered through the tall evergreens all around them,
cool enough so that snuggling together in Qui-Gon's voluminous
Jedi cloak was entirely delightful. The night sky above was
ablaze with the diamond brilliance of the galaxy above, the sky
was absolutely crystal clear, the darkness the deepest shade of
blue possible this side of black. The absence of a moon meant
the view of the stars was undistorted, the forest around them
absolutely black. It was too late in this planet's winter for
insect sounds, and any animals would be frightened away by the
fire. Woodsmoke and evergreen scents swirled in the fitful
breeze around them. Peacefulness and cozy contentment, snuggled
here together.
"So you are now nineteen," Qui-Gon said softly, looking into
the fire with a small smile.
Obi-Wan nodded against the broad chest.
"And I am forty-one," Qui-Gon sighed in a whisper.
Obi-Wan tightened his arms around his bondmate in slight
protest at that. Not at the age, but at Qui-Gon's wistful
sadness. [You are not old, Qui-Gon Jinn. I will not hear you
speak such to me.]
Qui-Gon's eyes twinkled in mischief for a moment at the
command. "As you wish, my love. I am too happy at the moment to
think of such weighty topics."
"You. Are. Not. Old," Obi-Wan reiterated, poking his Master's
ribs with his fingers at every word.
"Understood, beloved," Qui-Gon chuckled, brushing a kiss over
Obi-Wan's hair. Then he changed topics again in his usual
mercurial way. "If you could have anything for your birthday,
anything at all, money no object, what would it be?"
Obi-Wan blinked in sudden blankness, caught off-guard for an
answer. "There's only one thing --well, two--that I've ever
really wanted, and I have them both."
"And those are?" Qui-Gon asked, rubbing his apprentice's back
under the swathing of the dark brown cloak. Obi-Wan was still
small enough despite a recent growth spurt to fit curled
against his Master's side.
Obi-Wan smiled slowly and freed one hand to reach up and caress
his Master's cheek. "First, to be a Jedi. Second, to be loved
in all ways by my wondrous Master and to love him with all my
heart and soul in return. Now I am accomplishing both, or so I
hope."
"Oh, yes," Qui-Gon said with a grin. "Definitely working on
both, beloved."
Obi-Wan giggled a little at this.
"Our lives leave little room for the material, beloved,"
Qui-Gon said softly, tossing a pine cone into the fire.
"Perhaps it's just as well. What truly matters is what cannot
be bought or sold. Peace. Love. Insight. Self-knowledge.
Mindfulness."
Obi-Wan nodded his understanding. They were alike in this view,
it was not something Qui-Gon had ever needed to teach him. Even
more so after their souls had twined into the soulbond they now
shared. Now, so many things seemed so frivolous and petty and
unneccessary when set against the standard of a love so abiding
the joy of it alone could literally bring him to tears.
He felt his bondmate's seeking mind poking about, caught by a
memory too vague, trying to worry it into his conscious mind.
Then the bright gladness when he found it.
"What?" Obi-Wan murmured drowsily.
"Another poem, beloved."
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "My lover the Jedi bard."
They both snickered at that.
"Well?" Obi-Wan asked archly, rubbing his cheek against rough
linen. "Out with it."
Qui-Gon looked up at the blazing stars above them and began.
"I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it,
Time in hours, days, years,
Driven by the spheres,
Like a vast shadow moved,
In which the world
And all her train were hurled."
They were silent for a few long minutes after that, breathing
in the peace and stillness in the windtossed trees and the
crackle of the campfire.
"Why is it that poetry speaks so much to us?" Obi-Wan asked
quietly, his eyes lost in the low flicker of the flames.
Qui-Gon shrugged a little, stroked Obi-Wan's hair slowly as he
kissed the soft bristling gold. "I don't entirely know,
beloved. But I suspect it is because poetry is a language of
symbol, far deeper than simply the surface of the words. Every
phrase, the picture the words evoke, the order of the symbols
and images themselves, are a sort of encoded message to us. And
the message changes from person to person, moment to moment."
Another soft kiss, and Obi-Wan felt him considering. "I suspect
all art is that way."
Obi-Wan blinked lazily and stifled a sudden yawn against his
beloved's chest. A full tummy and the hike up the mountain from
their ship had caught up to him at last.
"Hmm. Sleepy, Padawan?"
Obi-Wan looked up at his bondmate as he caught the note of
slyness in the deep voice. Blue-violet eyes sparkled with
veiled mischief. "Uhm, a little."
"Only a little?"
Obi-Wan grinned at the hopeful tone. "Master?"
"Yes, Padawan?"
"Whatever you have planned, it had better include your sash
tying my wrists together and that jar of chocolate sauce I saw
in the supplies."
Qui-Gon chuckled and pulled him up into a slow, toes-curling
kiss. "I think that can be arranged."
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